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israeli apartheid
I Refuse to Let Anyone Make Me Feel Ashamed of Speaking Up for Palestine
My head and my heart both tell me that not only is a free Palestine possible, it is inevitable.
Oct 10, 2024
This week I spoke at an interfaith vigil for Palestine at the University of Maryland, We had to pass through metal detectors to reach the field where the event took place. Students were not allowed to have loudspeakers—or, apparently, even lighting. I had prepared notes, but I couldn’t see them in the darkness. This is reconstructed from those notes.
Brothers and sisters, friends, I want to start by addressing the people of Palestine. You have shown the world that human beings are capable of more strength, faith, and courage than most of us could ever imagine. We love and honor you. We mourn for every man, woman, and child slaughtered with U.S. arms and U.S. dollars in the name of democracy.
But the people of Palestine didn’t sign up to be anyone’s inspiration. They didn’t enlist for this sacrifice. They were drafted into it after the Second World War by a world order that was and is dominated by Western powers. Those powers took their land—not out of idealism, as we were told, but for reasons of control and hegemony.
Those of us who try to promote justice for Palestine—which I think describes most of us here—often find ourselves facing a barrage of mind games and word games. Here’s why that’s on my mind tonight: I write and speak often about Palestine, so I’m used to nasty correspondence. But I got more this weekend than I expected, because what I’d written on Friday felt pretty mild. After some biased coverage from CBS News, some allies and I circulated a petition asking CBS to put a camera crew at the Hebron crossing, to show people what happens there so they can make up their own minds.
That’s it.
Judging by the responses, you’d think “make up our own minds” was hate speech. I’m sure you’ve experienced this, too: Even if all you say about Palestine is “Gosh, it’s too bad about the children,” the responses can be vitriolic.
This has been a shocking year—for the sheer volume of lives lost, for the magnitude of the violence, and for the nakedness of the genocidal intention displayed by Israel and supported by the U.S.
Let me quote some of the emails I received. (Don’t worry, I’ll leave out the bad language and personal insults.) One accused me of “flaming the fire that is... causing the unprecedented rise in antisemitism and just plain old Jew hatred everywhere.”
Another said, “Many more countries should be called out for their atrocious stances on racism, woman’s rights, religious rights, and freedom of any kind... be fair and balanced.”
One self-described expert wrote, “Do you understand that Jews cannot enter any Palestinian area without the risk of being killed or kidnapped?” (Apparently he hasn’t heard of “settlements.”) Another said, “People are getting sick and tired of your one-sided complaints.”
See what they’re doing? Every day we’re told that even mild criticism of Israel makes you an awful person who promotes “Jew hatred,” who’s unfair and unbalanced, who makes people “sick and tired.”
They want us to feel badly about speaking up for Palestine—as if it’s wrong to oppose the killing of children or the mass starvation and homelessness of an entire population. They want us to feel ashamed for telling the truth.
But you know what? I’m done. I refuse to let anyone make me feel ashamed for telling the truth. Nobody will make me feel badly about demanding justice.
I’m proud of speaking up, and I hope every one of you is proud too. Please don’t stop.
But I will say this: I think a few of these comments arise out of genuine pain and fear. Western interests have spent 75 years manipulating the emotions of an innocent people who had barely survived an unthinkable trauma.
I know; I lived through some of that manipulation. It wasn’t just in school or on the evening news. It permeated the culture.
When I was eight years old my parents took me to see a movie about Israel that was very popular at the time. The theme song began, “This land is mine, God gave this land to me...” ( Talk about “extremist rhetoric.”)
Those Western forces—who never had any special love for the Jewish people—instilled fear in millions to promote their cynical objectives. Today, they’ve frightened them so much that defending innocent infants feels like hate rather than humanity. That’s no way to live.
But I can have compassion for them and still know they’re tragically misguided.
People act as if we, not they, are too selective with our empathy. Psychologists call that “projection.” They tell us we should mourn all the innocent dead. I do—with all my heart and soul. The other side may dehumanize; we will not. As the anticolonialist revolutionary Omar Mukhtar reportedly said, “They are not our teachers.” We will not stoop to their level.
The Jewish and Islamic traditions both say that to kill one innocent person is to destroy an entire universe. “One innocent person;” that’s an individual measurement. As individuals, I mourn each innocent soul equally. Each is precious. Each is to be grieved for. Each is a universe, infinite.
But the freedom struggle is not about individuals or individual lives. It’s about a system—a system of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. It’s about entrenched and globalized racism. It’s about the debasing of international courts, diplomacy, and organizations—especially those that rightly condemn Israel’s illegal occupation, its wanton cruelty, and its many violations of international and moral law.
This has been a shocking year—for the sheer volume of lives lost, for the magnitude of the violence, and for the nakedness of the genocidal intention displayed by Israel and supported by the U.S.
It’s been shocking on the home front, too. I’ve been shocked by what I’ve seen and heard from people I know, from politicians, from public figures…
I thought I had a pretty good idea how things work around here. I didn’t know the half of it. In the last year I’ve seen my country exposed as a shadow—no, the shadow of a shadow—of the image it presents to the world. Sure, I knew about its militarism, colonialism, racism, and hypocrisy. I wasn’t even surprised by its support for the first waves of slaughter against Gaza. Saddened and horrified, yes, but not surprised.
But what shocked me then, and shocks me still, is its unending support for relentless genocide—day after day, week after week, month after month—with only the most translucent veneer of empty rhetoric to cover it.
And I’m surprised by the brazenness with which America’s global military machine wields its power, not only around the world but here in America. All other institutions in this country—media, police, employers—bow before it. That includes educational institutions. This machine openlysuppresses our rights—especially your rights as students who deserve to speak and think freely while pursuing peace and justice.
The weaponization of antisemitism: I have to say, I did see that coming. But they’ve taken it to new levels.
Which makes this a good time to talk about my own background: My father’s parents came from a Jewish village in what was then Russia and is now Ukraine. My mother’s mother was French. My maternal grandfather was born in a covered wagon headed west. (Three out of four of my grandparents were immigrants, but no white American has ever asked me “where I’m from.” Hmm.)
My maternal great-grandfather fought in the U.S. Civil War. My paternal great-grandfather was a senior rabbinical judge in Russia who presumably made judgments based on halakhic law. (If you don’t know what halakha is, it’s the Jewish version of shar’ia—without all the bad publicity.)
I’m proud of my Jewish grandparents, who came to a new land with nothing. My grandmother was one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. My grandfather was a tailor and a left-wing union organizer who as a young man helped his entire village escape from the pogroms.
You know what “pogrom” means, right? It’s the Russian word for “Cossacks doing to Jewish villagers back then what settlers do to Palestinians in the West Bank today.”
And so, here we are, one year later. What happens next? Nobody knows the future, least of all me. But I can offer some observations before I go:
I was a child during the integration of the segregated, apartheid American South (although that’s still a work in progress). People said Black people would never be able to vote, or even to eat in the same restaurants as white people. They said it was impossible. But it happened.
I worked in communist Europe, where I saw the Soviet empire collapse—something else people thought was impossible. But it happened.
I spent time in South Africa, where people once thought apartheid was permanent and that there would be a bloodbath if it fell apart. They said a peaceful transition was impossible. But it happened.
And so, while I can’t back it up with facts and figures, I sense something coming—something people say is impossible. My head and my heart both tell me that not only is a free Palestine possible, it is inevitable. I see the people of Palestine, and I see all of you here tonight, and I know that you’ll keep the faith and continue the struggle until that day comes. Deep inside, I feel it.
And so, I tell you now that I am certain—in my body and my soul—that justice will prevail and Palestine will be free.
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Israeli Racism Shouldn’t Get a Pass in America
Why isn’t Israel shunned as a pariah nation, as South Africa once was, for denying the human rights of Palestinians and for the immorality of its ethno-supremacist practices?
Aug 10, 2024
In 2013, Justine Sacco, an executive at a New York public relations firm, sent a tweet in which she joked about AIDS among Black Africans. “Going to Africa,” her tweet said, “Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” The tweet, which went viral, was denounced as racist and, despite an abject apology, Sacco was fired from her job.
Amy Cooper earned a similar fate. In May, 2020, Cooper was roaming in New York’s Central Park when a male birdwatcher confronted her about her unleashed dog. Cooper then called the police. “There is a man, African American,” she reported, “and he is recording me and threatening me and my dog... please send the cops immediately!” For this racist ploy, Cooper was publicly condemned. She, too, ended up losing her job.
On July 8, 2024, the WRAL (Raleigh, North Carolina) news website ran the headline, “Millions of Tax Dollars Going to a Company Accused of Racism. WRAL Investigates Why the State Still Hasn’t Taken Action.” The headline implies that what’s allegedly going on is wrong and should be investigated, presumably to stop state support for a racist enterprise.
These examples of anti-racist reaction suggest that as a society we’ve reached a point where public expressions of racism, as well as public support for racism, are unacceptable. One offensive joke can get you fired. Yet we now see an egregious double standard being applied in the U.S. when it comes to tolerance of and support for racism.
Imagine a revised version of that WRAL headline: “Billions of Tax Dollars Going to a Country Accused of Racism. Mainstream Media Coordinate Efforts to Investigate Why the Federal Government Still Hasn’t Taken Action.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for it.
The reality is that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are going to a country not only accused of racism, but which, as many see it, was founded on racist premises, still practices apartheid, and whose leaders have for decades made unabashedly racist public statements. That country is, of course, Israel.
Israel’s anti-Palestinian racism is a glaring example of the dehumanization that racism entails and the murderous brutality racism enables.
Since October 7, 2023, blatantly racist statements by Israeli leaders have been widely reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened Palestinians to Amalekites, an ancient tribe in Old Testament lore whom Yahweh told the Israelites to destroy—men, women, children, infants, and cattle. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Israel’s assault on Gaza as a fight against “human animals.” Other Israeli officials called for erasing Gaza from the face of the Earth, claiming that no Palestinian civilians are innocent.
Cued by their political leaders, Israeli soldiers have released racist videos on social media celebrating their dominance of Palestinians and the destruction of Palestinian homes.
From the top echelons of government to army field units, Israeli racism has been on clear display to the world. These expressions of virulent racism mattered to the International Court of Justice, which took them as evidence of genocidal intent, but they did not seem to matter to U.S. political leaders, except perhaps as instances of bad optics.
Partisans of Israel sought to explain away these expressions of anti-Palestinian racism as uncharacteristic outbursts, products of the rage many Israelis felt in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas. There is no doubt some truth in this claim; anger conduces to saying hateful things. But the history of anti-Palestinian racism in Israel did not begin in 2023. In fact, it precedes Israel’s founding.
Theodor Herzl, one of the principal architects of political Zionism in the late 19th century, saw the native Arabs of Palestine as “primitive and backward,” according to Israeli historian Avi Shlaim. Herzl expected Palestinian Arabs to be grateful for the prosperity that a Jewish influx would bring to Palestine. Consistent with the ideological fantasies of earlier generations of European colonizers, Herzl imagined that Jews would merit credit for assuming the white man’s burden of civilizing the natives.
Other early Zionists differed in the degree to which they anticipated Arab resistance to the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine. But all accepted the principle that it ultimately didn’t matter what the Indigenous people wanted. By use of military force backed by outside imperial powers (Britain; later the U.S.), and through diplomatic sidelining of Palestinian Arabs, Zionists aimed to create the ethnocratic state of Israel, regardless of the conflicting nationalist aspirations of Palestinians.
All this preceded WWII, the Holocaust, and the formal creation of Israel. The forcible displacement of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes and land—what we today would call “ethnic cleansing”—in the 1948 Nakba was largely a matter of putting into practice an idea rooted in political Zionism from the start: The lives, wishes, and well-being of the native Arab population would not be allowed to deter the creation of a Jewish state.
In one sense, little has changed since 1948. Successive Israeli governments have used different levels of violence to quash Palestinian resistance to colonial oppression, but all have adhered to the principle that Israel should be a Jewish state, run by Jews for Jews, with as few Palestinians as possible from the river to the sea. Nor has any Israeli government relinquished the idea that Palestinian desires for freedom and self-determination must be subjugated if necessary for Israel to exist as a Jewish state.
Today, the heir to this racist philosophy is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over 30 years ago, in his book A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World, Netanyahu slandered Arabs across the board, writing, “Violence is ubiquitous in the political life of all the Arab countries. It is the primary method of dealing with opponents, both foreign and domestic, both Arab and non-Arab.” Netanyahu goes on to call terrorism “the quintessential Middle East export,” saying that “its techniques everywhere are those of the Arab regimes and organizations that invented it.” Projection much?
To be clear, what makes Zionism racist are its implicit assumptions that the desires of Jews to live in freedom, safety, and dignity take precedence over Palestinian desires for the same things; that it is acceptable for a militarily powerful Jewish state to impose its will on a stateless and vulnerable Palestinian group; and that the goal of maintaining a Jewish state trumps the basic human rights of Palestinians.
Anti-Palestinian racism helps to legitimate these ideas and is further reinforced when it is invoked, as by Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, to justify violence and the daily humiliation of apartheid. These are not radical observations. In much of the world, outside the sphere of U.S. influence, Israel’s anti-Palestinian racism is plain as day, and what I’m saying here would be uncontroversial.
So when other expressions of racism are unacceptable in the U.S. today, why does anti-Arab Israeli racism get a pass? Why isn’t Israel shunned as a pariah nation, as South Africa once was, for denying the human rights of Palestinians and for the immorality of its ethno-supremacist practices?
One answer is that realpolitik rarely bends to morality. As former Secretary of State and Army General Alexander Haig once put it, Israel is like an unsinkable American aircraft carrier in the Middle East, projecting power in a region of great economic importance to the U.S. ruling class. Relative to the larger geopolitical stakes at play in the region, the fate of a stateless Arab minority is not that important, except as a potential source of instability. If this source of instability were somehow made to go away, many U.S. political leaders would be perfectly happy, regardless of the racism embedded in the solution.
Another reason many Americans are willing to tolerate Israeli racism is that the two nations are seen as sharing a similar origin story, one that makes racist crimes forgivable.
Just as European colonists once sought freedom from popes and kings by forging a new nation in North America, Jews sought freedom from pogroms and antisemitism by creating a Jewish state in the Middle East. Yes, some Indigenous people got hurt in the process, and that’s a shame. But this suffering pales when weighed against the benefits America and Israel have brought the world. What’s more, after the Holocaust, Jews have an undeniable claim to seek their own version of Manifest Destiny. So the story goes.
Those who accept this settler-colonial mythos—underscored by biblical fables, post-Holocaust guilt, and devaluing of a racialized Other—may have trouble seeing what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians as wrong. It will be admitted that maintaining an ethnocratic Jewish state is ugly, even bloody, at times; but the ends justify the means.
Nor should we forget that anti-Arab racism abounds in the U.S. as well as Israel. Americans are thoroughly propagandized to accept the stereotype of Arabs as terrorists, or as Islamic fanatics rooted in a regressive medieval culture. The racist Israeli view of Arabs thus fails to shock in the U.S., fails to shock as it should, because the same view is normalized here. Our “special relationship” with Israel is built in part on this shared infection with the virus of colonial racism.
Israel’s anti-Palestinian racism is a glaring example of the dehumanization that racism entails and the murderous brutality racism enables. This is what the world has seen play out in Gaza these last 10 months. There could be no better example, right now, of why Israeli racism should not get a pass in the U.S., nor anywhere, ever again.
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Why the ICJ Ruling on Israel’s Occupation of Palestine Matters
This level of judicial consensus in such a politically polarized atmosphere lends support for viewing the court’s decision as authoritative when it comes to evaluating Israel’s behavior as an occupying power in relation to international humanitarian law.
Jul 25, 2024
The International Court of Justice overwhelmingly decided last week that Israel is no longer legally entitled to act as the occupying power in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, noting that its further presence in these territories is unlawful.
The decision took the form of an “advisory opinion” in response to two “legal questions” put to the ICJ by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022.
Israel declined to take part in the court proceedings except by way of a written statement objecting to the whole process as improper, arguing that Israel’s consent was needed before its governmental conduct could be legally evaluated by the ICJ, even in a process labelled as “advisory.”
Israel gives every sign of ignoring the ICJ as it works to “finish the job” in Gaza, while continuing the policies and practices associated with its approach to occupation since 1967.
Does being an “advisory opinion” rather than a formal judgment in a “contentious” case make a decisive difference in the political weight or legal authoritativeness of the outcome in this comprehensive legal scrutiny of Israel’s prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories?
An important question is raised by the formal, obligatory format of the ongoing South African ICJ case alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
From Israel’s point of view, these two cases are not very different, beyond the ICJ focusing on the alleged legal wrongdoing associated with 57 years of prolonged occupation in one instance, and in the other, South Africa seeking the court’s support to end the Gaza genocide that started last October.
In both instances, Israel has denounced the ICJ for reaching legal conclusions that it says compromise its security and right to defend itself. With such reasoning, Israel gives every sign of ignoring the ICJ as it works to “finish the job” in Gaza, while continuing the policies and practices associated with its approach to occupation since 1967.
‘No One Will Stop Us’
Israel’s language of rejection is clear, with the prime minister’s office noting in a statement: “Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the discussion at the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding the ‘legality of the occupation’—a move designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats.” Or in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cruder language, “No one will stop us.”
On a superficial level, this near-convergence of outcomes seems to neglect the intended distinction between what is “advisory” (and hence non-binding) and what is “obligatory” and binding. Upon more reflective consideration, this convergence is far deeper, grounded more in the evolving jurisprudence of the ICJ than in Israel’s criticisms of the process and refusal to implement the rulings in either case.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the U.S. and Australian judges cast their votes in line with the ICJ consensus, despite their governments being ardent supporters of Israel.
In its lengthy landmark decision on the issue of the Israeli occupation, the ICJ reached nine conclusions, none of which were opposed by more than four of the 15 participating judges.
This level of judicial consensus in such a politically polarized atmosphere lends support for viewing the court’s decision as authoritative when it comes to evaluating Israel’s behavior as an occupying power in relation to international humanitarian law—especially the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation—and international human rights law, especially the treaty prohibiting racial discrimination.
Such a consensus is strengthened by additional comments from judges from Global South countries (including Somalia and Lebanon) that go further than the advisory opinion itself to explore the relevance of the colonial background that informs the occupation of Palestine.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the U.S. and Australian judges cast their votes in line with the ICJ consensus, despite their governments being ardent supporters of Israel, with eyes closed to Israeli criminality in both the long occupation and the Gaza genocide.
Primacy of Geopolitics
As with the South African case, the ICJ gained widespread approval for so clearly putting law ahead of national identity. This kind of prioritization is missing from the political organs of the U.N., especially the Security Council, where affiliated flags take unquestioned precedence—and to be sure that the primacy of geopolitics is sustained, the permanent members, P5, get a veto (prompting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to object with the pithy words: “The world is greater than five.”)
The ICJ formulates the substance of its legal analysis in language that intends to be obligatory with respect to Israel. It directs all states and the U.N. itself to implement its rulings on matters of illegality and the consequences of Israeli unlawfulness. While the decision is labelled “advisory,” as required by the ICJ framework, its pronouncements on the law are stated as if authoritative, and they are supported by the overwhelming majority of judges.
The ICJ also appears to be claiming the authority to tell three categories of political actors—Israel, all states, and the U.N.—what their obligations are with respect to its central finding that Israel’s prolonged presence is no longer legal and should be terminated as rapidly as possible.
This advisory opinion lends important authoritative support to several central Palestinian grievances with respect to international humanitarian and human rights law.
In the process of reaching this weighty conclusion, the ICJ found that Israel was responsible for blocking the Palestinian right to self-determination, wrongfully annexing Palestinian territory by force, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention through its large-scale settlement project, and relying upon discriminatory policies and practices to administer the occupied territories.
The few judges who refused to go along with these findings argued that the ICJ proceedings took insufficient account of Israeli security concerns and counter arguments.
Regardless, this advisory opinion lends important authoritative support to several central Palestinian grievances with respect to international humanitarian and human rights law, particularly concerning the lawfulness of controversial Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories—and the legal duty of Israel, other states, and the U.N. to follow this decision up with concrete action.
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